


Besos

by masquerace



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Coran is not where he's supposed to be, Homesickness, Hunk is helping, Lance being Lance, M/M, Now with a second chapter!, Pining Keith (Voltron), Shiro is missing, even though he doesn't have a word for it, it's cleaning day, the title is a little misleading and I apologize
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-10-14 01:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10525599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masquerace/pseuds/masquerace
Summary: Keith is anxious and frustrated with the silence of space, so he heads off to challenge the practice drone and fight away his feelings. On his way, he discovers that space isn't always so silent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedoodlelord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedoodlelord/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith learns something new about Lance that leads him to discover something about himself.

Keith never liked the slow days. The other paladins spent slow days cleaning and lazing about, but Keith could only feel tense. The Galra were still out there terrorizing innocents, and who knows if Zarkon was actually dead or awake and furiously plotting his revenge on them. Keith felt his nails dig into his palms as he walked.

 

Not to mention Shiro was still missing.

 

Allura assigned them all cleaning duty while they waited for a new signal to come in over the castle’s system. She stayed manned at the helm for that purpose, and she sent the rest of them off. Keith was tasked with cleaning the kitchen and dining areas, and Lance and Coran were assigned the training gym and cryopod room. Hunk and Pidge were sent down to the lion’s docking bays.

 

Keith made his way down the hallways towards the training space in hopes that the two assigned had finished and he could work off some of his frustration and anxiety on the practice drone. He approached the cryopod room and nearly froze in his tracks. He heard music.

 

More accurately, someone was singing. Keith allowed himself to open up and let the song warm him the same way he would pause and breathe in front of the sun streaming through the window in his desert shack. He remembered playing songs on his laptop, trying to fill the empty and deathly silent air with _something_ to keep himself sane. The singing reminded him of Earth and how, even though he didn’t have anyone there to miss him, he still missed it.

 

An unexpected feeling of homesickness rushed over him and Keith started walking faster to reach the training room that much more quickly. If Keith discovered anything from his time at the Castle of Lions, it was that he could fight away any unwanted emotions with the practice drone.

 

Then Keith saw that it was _Lance_ singing, and his heart nearly stopped.

 

“ _Y eso es lo que quiero, besos. Que todas las mañanas…_ ”

 

Keith jumped back away from the doorway to the cryopod room and hoped that Lance hadn’t noticed him. He peered around the opening and saw that the blue paladin was alone and half-dancing to the song he sang. Keith was so enamored with the singing that he could barely register that Coran wasn’t there.

 

_“Y luego por la noche hoy me dan más besos pa’ cenar.”_

 

Although Keith’s Spanish wasn’t great (if he was honest it was more or less nonexistent), he did recognize that Lance was singing about wanting to kiss someone. His face felt hot.

 

Keith tried to use his bubbling confused feelings towards Lance as further reason to keep walking down to the training room, but he couldn’t will his legs to move from their spot. Lance’s voice was warm and smooth like the desert sand he spent so much time around, and his singing voice was beautiful. His half-assed dancing was even fluid and captivating. Lance kept surprising Keith with new talents every time the red paladin turned around, and Keith felt the urge to go up to Lance, grab him by the shoulders, and shout at him to stop being so damn great at everything.

 

All Keith could do was fly and hit things with a dagger accurately. He sighed.

 

“ _Y no piensas casi en los demás, qué más dará si m_ —Keith?”

 

Shit.

 

Keith felt his face light up with more intensity than before. He realized not only had he been peering around the door and spying like a creep, but Lance had _caught_ him spying like a creep. Keith felt like dying.

 

“Keith, buddy, what are you doing?”

 

“I… uh… I was going to see if I could use the training area yet.” He eased out from behind the door, and he was sure his face was still bright red.

 

“Oh, yeah. Coran and I finished that first, and the floors should be dry by now if you wanted to train.”

 

“Where is Coran, anyway?”

 

“Pidge and Hunk found something weird going on with the hangar door for Yellow, so Hunk called Coran down to take a look at it since Pidge has been so out of it these past couple days.”

 

“I can imagine…” Keith briefly thought about Shiro and sighed.

 

Lance seemed to notice Keith’s sudden apprehension and smiled softly. “Hey, I’m almost done here. Instead of going to shred the drone to push away whatever’s going on in your head—and don’t think we can’t tell the difference between when you want to train and when you’re upset. It’s obvious—why don’t we try the pool again?”

 

Keith stared blankly at him.

 

“Worst case scenario, we change and Allura needs us before we even get in.”

 

He felt himself nodding at Lance’s suggestion. His feet pulled him into the room and sat him down on one of the steps in the room. Keith’s mind was racing and trying to get a grasp on how quickly his plans for the day changed.

 

_Has he always been this nice? How can he tell I’m upset about something? Why does he care? Was there a reason he picked the one activity that would leave us both shirtless? Is he going to start singing again because I do not think I can handle that._

 

“Ready?”

 

Keith’s neck snapped up to look at Lance.

 

“To…” Lance frowned slightly, and he scratched slightly at his neck. “To go swimming?”

 

Right. “Yeah.” Keith got up and followed Lance down the hall. The quiet of the ship gave him strength to recollect himself and handle dealing with Lance the way he usually did. Which, if Keith was honest with himself, was also with confusion. Just… controlled confusion.

 

However, Keith’s mouth betrayed him.

 

“You sing really well.”

 

Lance nearly tripped at the sudden compliment, sputtering slightly. “O-oh, you heard that?”

 

“I didn’t really know what the lyrics were, but yeah, I did.”

 

“I really like that song. I used to sing it a lot at home before I came to the Garrison while I was working on things.”

 

Keith hesitated, realizing he could end the conversation now and allow them to continue being pseudo-rivals, or he could make another attempt at gaining Lance as a friend.

 

“Where is home for you?”

 

“What?” Lance seemed caught off guard by the question.

 

“Like, you’ve seen where I lived. I realized I don’t really know that much about you.” _Except that you have many more talents than I do._

 

“Oh.” Lance paused. “I’m from Cuba. Varadero, specifically.”

 

“I didn’t know.”

“Not many people realize it without me saying. Don’t really have the stereotypical accent, so they never assume I’m an immigrant. Even after I tell people, they tend to think that I grew up in the U.S., but no, Varadero is still my home.” Lance trailed off and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I miss that beach.”

 

“Is that why you wanted to go swimming?”

 

“That, and I’m amazing at it. I hope you’re ready to have me swim laps around you, desert boy.”

 

“Oh, okay, you’re on.”

 

“First one to the pool gets a three-second start!” Lance took off down the hall and rounded the corner to their bedrooms.

 

Keith paused for a fraction of a second and took off full force after him while shouting about how Lance would need that three-second lead if he were to beat Keith in a race.

 

Lance only laughed in response.

 

Keith felt his heart swell, but his face didn’t flush. For the first time in a while he felt full and ready and confident. There was a part of his that slightly feared Lance for having that sort of power over him, but the rest of him couldn’t imagine never having Lance around again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the song Lance is singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsJ_laB_xM&index=2&list=PLUinewOzIrIXAC1aQ96H0u721rmFHlHSJ
> 
> I suggest you listen to it, if only bc it's a cute song.


	2. Tal Como Eres

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith confronts some of the feelings Lance's singing keeps leaving him with. Hunk helps.

In the days following the incident with Lance, Keith found himself unconsciously seeking the blue paladin out. He never actually interacted with Lance after locating him, though. Knowing Lance abruptly stopped singing upon spotting Keith made him painfully aware of the distance between them and a little guilty. Keith _spied_ on the other boy—watched him while he was doing something by someone who was essentially a stranger.

 

And yet, Keith couldn’t get the sound of Lance’s voice out of his head. It was so soft and warm, and he couldn’t shake the way it made him feel. Almost like he didn’t have a care in the world. He knew what Shiro would say if he were there.

 

_“Talk to him. He may surprise you. Lance definitely considers the two of you friends, so a compliment would be a welcome change to your typical interactions.”_

 

Keith shook the voice of his friend from his mind. He would never forgive himself if his senseless emotional impulses caused him to screw up their bond in Voltron even more so.

 

The castle was eerily quiet. They were trying their best to lie low to try and avoid any unnecessary altercations that may require forming Voltron—something relatively difficult without their central member. Allura spoke of possibly taking over one of the lions in case of an emergency, but any talk of replacing Shiro, even for a brief period of time, made everyone feel like they were giving up on him reappearing. So in the meantime everyone spent their newly-found free time attending to their own affairs.

 

Keith split his time between sparring with the practice drone and wandering the halls definitely _not_ trying to catch Lance singing to himself again. He was… exploring. At least that’s what he told himself.

 

The sound of someone’s voice echoed down the hall but was too distant for Keith to make out who it was, let alone the words. He listlessly made his way towards the sound, wondering what the person was up to. These days away from each other had made Keith’s skin crawl with anticipation. He wasn’t used to being unused to isolation, and he wasn’t sure how to handle this new yearning for companionship.

 

As he drew closer to the occupied room, his breath caught in his throat when he realized it was Lance. And he was singing. Again.

 

“ _Y pensando, que sinceramente, te quiero asi, tal como eres, y como se. Que lo que haces te hace feliz, tal como eres…_ ”

 

His throat felt dry and Lance’s voice filled him with warmth just like last time. Keith could have sworn he was transported back to his desert on Earth with how he felt. He could almost picture himself leaning out the window of his shack while the radio crackled behind him.

 

“ _Te encontré sincero y mi amor no es el mismo, sin querer te espero como espera un amigo…_ ”

 

They were just words. Words Keith barely even understood, and they had him dying to reach out to the Cuban boy. Keith knew that if he made his presence known, Lance would stop. While everything about this made no sense to Keith, the one thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want the song to end.

 

Keith leaned against the wall by the door quietly listening with flushed cheeks. Lance clearly believed he was alone as his voice rose and fell in tune with the song, and the words fell easily from his tongue as if Lance truly felt every word he sang. Keith wished he understood more than every three words so he could know what Lance was pouring so much of himself into.

 

Lance’s voice grew softer, leading into the end of the song. Keith could feel it coming despite hoping it wouldn’t.

 

“ _Trato de darte de lo mejor que hace que todo se llame amor, trato de verme como soy yo y cambiar lo que duele._ ”

 

Silence fell once again, and Keith suddenly felt the cold metal of the walls through his shirt. As quietly as he could, the red paladin backtracked away from the room before Lance could emerge and discover him lurking.

 

Keith found his way to the kitchen area where Hunk was clearly experimenting with more alien ingredients to create something palatable for the castle’s human passengers. He took a seat at one of the barstools and watched Hunk work silently. The phase “ _tal como eres_ ” echoed in his mind so fiercely that Keith didn’t even realize Hunk had started a conversation with him.

 

“Keith, buddy, are you paying attention? You’ve got to stop wasting yourself on that simulator. It’s clearly taking a toll on you. ‘S not healthy.”

 

“Was Lance’s first language Spanish?”

 

Hunk paused and set down the teal vegetable-like food he was peeling. “I remember him saying that he didn’t start learning English until he was four or five, so that makes Spanish was his first language, yeah. Why the sudden curiosity? …And why not ask him directly instead of asking me?”

 

Keith shook his head. “It would only cause problems if I asked him.”

 

“O-okay.” Hunk raised his eyebrows. “Did something happen between you? I thought you two were finally getting along.”

 

“Yes—I mean, no. We are getting along. I think?” Keith threw his hands onto the counter.

 

Wiping his hands off on a rag, Hunk moved to sit next to Keith. “Alright. Spill. You gotta tell me what happened.”

 

“I… heard Lance singing. A few times. In Spanish. He only saw me once though, and… he’s really good.”

 

“Did you tell him that? Because that’s your number one way of getting Lance to never stop singing around you because he lives on compliments. Plus he knows he’s good so reinforcing that only makes him do it more often.”

 

“I really… I haven’t felt… homesick once since we’ve been here. I have nothing left for me on Earth. No future, no family, no friends, barely a house. The closest person I have to family is Shiro, and he’s out _here_ even if he is missing again. But I heard Lance sing, and I suddenly missed the desert mornings I spent listening to music while I worked.”

 

“I miss Earth mornings too. Helping fix breakfast for my family as the sun crept in through the kitchen window. Being able to smell the dew in the air. There’s nothing like that in space.” Hunk swallowed a lump in his throat and sighed. “All the differences are wreaking havoc on my anxiety, but knowing I’m not the only one who has to deal with this stuff helps. Talking to Lance helps.”

 

“Because you two are close?”

 

“Well, yeah. But family is everything to Lance, and he has a big one back on Earth. And he’s already had to leave them behind once before, so he’s a pro at dealing with homesickness.”

 

Keith glanced down and thought about everything Lance had said that hinted about how much he wanted to be at the Garrison. And he thought about how home to Lance was Cuba. And how Lance was the one who lead them out into space in the first place. How could he have missed the homesickness in Lance’s voice when he sang? When he spoke? Hunk was right. Lance really was an expert at handling those feelings.

 

The red paladin got up and headed out of the kitchen. “Thanks, Hunk.”

 

“No problem. I think.” Hunk moved to resume cooking. “Oh! If you see Pidge, send her over here because I don’t think she’s eaten in the past twenty-four hours.”

 

“Will do.”

 

Keith softly hummed the melody Lance was singing earlier under his breath as he went to go see if he wanted to maybe go swimming together again. He really hoped Lance would say yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the song for chapter two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EYc7tL5Jdk

**Author's Note:**

> This is the song Lance is singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSsJ_laB_xM&index=2&list=PLUinewOzIrIXAC1aQ96H0u721rmFHlHSJ
> 
> I suggest you listen to it, if only bc it's a cute song.


End file.
